Unless things have changed, Finance has been working on a budget since the fall. It is only the desire to hide what the government is planning that they are not presenting a budget.
As a former Reserve member this CBC article caught my attention this morning. It talks about the difficulties they are having retaining new recruits. I expected large attrition numbers. I was shocked that they seem to consider less than 10% attrition to be a major problem. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-retention-program-defunding-1.7536509
As an aside, when I joined the UK forces 25-odd years ago there were loads of Canadians with British passports joining too. The lad in the bunk below me at Dartmouth, who was an ex-reservist in Princess Pat’s, actually bluntly said if he was going to join the forces then he wanted to join the British because the kit was better and there’d be more travel.
I expected the (white) South Africans and Zimbabweans, and the lads from the various Caribbean Commonwealth realms, but the Australian, NZ and Canadian contingent joining the UK forces was an eye-opener for a younger me.
As it so often is, The Beaverton is spot-on with their reaction to the wave of pro-monarchist sentiment accompanying the King's visit.
"Canada is a proud, independent nation that will not be bullied,” stated Prime Minister Mark Carney. “And what better way to warn off that bully than by asking our old daddy to protect us?”
This sums up my feelings on the whole matter pretty well.
Yeah. On the other hand, it was the premier of Ontario(motto: Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet) who suggested a few weeks back that Canada should start electing its judges.
True. It almost certainly won't become an actual policy.
FWIW, though, Ford's public statements on gender and education have been about as reactionary as Smith's, though I don't know if he's actually been able to implement any of his ideas.
Ford's intemperate comments also paper over the fact that criminal procedure is a federal matter and judges only have as much leeway as the Feds decide to give them.
Ford's intemperate comments also paper over the fact that criminal procedure is a federal matter and judges only have as much leeway as the Feds decide to give them.
I know, I know. I just thought it was ironic that the guy who mere weeks earlier had been getting himself hailed as Captain Canada was advocating a judicial policy historically reviled among Canadians as a major culprit in the devolution of American democracy into a populist debauch.
As it so often is, The Beaverton is spot-on with their reaction to the wave of pro-monarchist sentiment accompanying the King's visit.
"Canada is a proud, independent nation that will not be bullied,” stated Prime Minister Mark Carney. “And what better way to warn off that bully than by asking our old daddy to protect us?”
This sums up my feelings on the whole matter pretty well.
Well, I think think the message is arguably not so much "Canada is a loyal daughter of the Empire, ya yankee dogs!", and more like "If you insist on running your nation's trade and foreign policy like a coked-out reality show, we are more than capable of finding other alliances", with King Charles III a convenient and accessible symbol of our alternate options.
But yeah. If you're someone who thinks Canada's British inheritance is the sine qua non of its non-Americanness, this really is your moment of triumphant restoration.
Oh, and did anybody else catch the BQ leader's answer to the question of Alberta separatism?
He calmly stated that he thought independence requires an existing "nation", and he wasn't sure if "oil and gas" really qualify, but it's also ultimately up to the people of Alberta, though he really hopes Quebec will be the first.
(I was going to mischeviously observe that the Quebec independence movement had its greatest heyday around the same time that rabid francophobia was running amok in Alberta, though, being a kid in that era, I can't quite recall how much it ebbed and flowed relative to Quebec-related political events, eg. the 2/80 federal election and the 5/80 Quebec referendum. It was definitely in full swing by the end of 1980, at the very latest.)
But yeah. If you're someone who thinks Canada's British inheritance is the sine qua non of its non-Americanness, this really is your moment of triumphant restoration.
Guilty as charged, sir.
Crossing blades with the ususal Republicans at the Ontario NDP Convention this year is going to be more fun than ususal.
Re: The BQ and Alberta
The BQ must really be enjoying themselves, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Although I detect a whiff of the old Social Credit Party there.
Though speaking of Quebec referendums, I am reminded when Pauline Marois visited Scotland ahead of the Scottish Referendum and was treated by the SNP as a bad smell.
But yeah. If you're someone who thinks Canada's British inheritance is the sine qua non of its non-Americanness, this really is your moment of triumphant restoration.
Guilty as charged, sir.
The paving fluid and plumage await, Major Molyneaux.
Crossing blades with the ususal republicans at the Ontario NDP Convention this year is going to be more fun than ususal.
[capitalization corrected for clarity]
Yeah. If this was some broader western-alliance snafu, eg. the Iraq War, left-wing republicans could point out that that monarchist Britain went to war and republican France stayed peaceful. But the current crisis is down ENTIRELY to the actions of the government of the most famously republican nation in the world, which Canadians still have a vaguely maintained memory of the country they desperately DON'T want to be part of.
Re: The BQ and Alberta
The BQ must really be enjoying themselves, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Although I detect a whiff of the old Social Credit Party there.
Do you mean you detect Social Credit overtones in the Alberta independence movement, the Quebec independence movement, or both? Because all three could make sense, given the relevant history of the parties involved.
I'm generally tempted to lump Social Credit and creditiste in all their respective partusan manifestations, both douglasite and non-douglasite, together as one single farmer-car dealer alliance. That has also ALWAYS been the basis of Alberta separatism, and at least for a while seemed to be on the ascension in the PQ, with the leftist-cosmopolitans of the old Levesque coalition moving over to Quebec Solidaire.
(Open to correction on this, because I've heard conflicting things about the current PQ right now.)
Though speaking of Quebec referendums, I am reminded when Pauline Marois visited Scotland ahead of the Scottish Referendum and was treated by the SNP as a bad smell.
In fairness, Quebeckers as a conquered people should probably have roughly the same right to self-determination as the Scots, if not moreso, given that New France was taken violently in one fell swoop. But I'm guessing that someone on the SNP's research team looked into the PQ and saw that they were by that point basically representing the viewpoint of Quebec's equivalent to Basil Fawlty.
And it's technically not Canadian territory, but such is our gallant history of proper deference to proper authority it's hard to find an example of our colonialists behaving with such bestial impudence.
Despite Aberhart's attempts at printing a provincial currency, I don't think any permutation of Social Credit, called by that name, was separatist. But taking the Reform Party, Wildrose etc as next-generation socreds, you can see the morph into hardcore regionalism.
(I think the historical ur-figure for Quebec's chauvinistic nationalism is more Duplessis than Caouette, with the QS, among others, I'm sure, comparing Legault's CAQ to the Union Nationale.)
May I ask, what side would you have been on in the flag debate of the mid-1960s? I myself woulda been pro-maple leaf, and I will observe that maintaining an imperial-based banner hasn't deterred Australia from spawning a much stronger republican movement than we've ever seen in Canada(*).
(*) Even Quebec sovereigntists don't seem to have jettisoning the monarchy as a primary goal, more just something that will inevitably happen as a result of attaining their independence.
I too am pro-replacement. The Dominion Red Ensign actually hadn't been around very long. I have a book on my bookshelf that details the entire flag history. We actually ended up with an S-tier bold, distinctive and simple heraldic design that people actually loved (and even the Legion came around a few years later). Plus as its so recent, there is a whole story behind the scenes about how the NRC did a whole project about getting the colour specifications just right. There are actually two standards, one for indoor flags and one for outdoor flags, the former is a deeper red. There is a reason the flags beside the Speaker in the House of Commons look so good on camera.
We have actually ended up at where I wanted us to be with national symbols. This is tied into the Armed Forces Unification controvery of a few years later. We presently have my ideal and preferred solution, the Armed Forces got their old service names, uniforms and ranks back and Canada has its own flag.
I just looked it up, and out of fifteen Commonweath Realms, only four, ie. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and(of course) the UK, have any recognizable British symbolism(*).
(*) Five, if you count St. Andrew's Cross on the Jamaican standard, though that symbol isn't exclusively British, and the colouring is different.
When researching St. Andrew's Cross for the above post, google's AI box informed me that, in addition to the Scottish flag, St. Andrew's Cross also appears on the flags of Greece, Ireland, and Norway.
I just looked it up, and out of fifteen Commonweath Realms, only four, ie. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and(of course) the UK, have any recognizable British symbolism(*).
(*) Five, if you count St. Andrew's Cross on the Jamaican standard, though that symbol isn't exclusively British, and the colouring is different.
Though there are also anomalies outside the Commonwealth realms like Fiji.
I just looked it up, and out of fifteen Commonweath Realms, only four, ie. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and(of course) the UK, have any recognizable British symbolism(*).
(*) Five, if you count St. Andrew's Cross on the Jamaican standard, though that symbol isn't exclusively British, and the colouring is different.
Though there are also anomalies outside the Commonwealth realms like Fiji.
Is my post about this belong here? I got different things on my mind here is my part of Canada than kings and queens.
We got States of Emergency for the forest fires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We live on the border which mostly we are not sure exactly where it is. 8 fires to the north if we are counting right. 1 is to south. Only 2 of the fires are under control. Heavy smoke and many evacuees coming to our Reserves and the villages. Some family camps are burnt out now. Elders and children are going far away from smoke which is hard. Lots of kindness. There is so much food, we will get fat lol. Same thing every summer now.
Is my post about this belong here? I got different things on my mind here is my part of Canada than kings and queens.
We got States of Emergency for the forest fires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We live on the border which mostly we are not sure exactly where it is. 8 fires to the north if we are counting right. 1 is to south. Only 2 of the fires are under control. Heavy smoke and many evacuees coming to our Reserves and the villages. Some family camps are burnt out now. Elders and children are going far away from smoke which is hard. Lots of kindness. There is so much food, we will get fat lol. Same thing every summer now.
If you're looking to discuss the political fallout from this, your post might very well belong here, though focus on indigenous issues might make it suitable for Epiphanies.
If it's more just the event itself and its impact on everyday life, maybe the Canada thread in All Saints.
Sorry. I can't delete it. Thought it might be okay to post. I live in completely different way of thinking. For me this is us losing everything while established people talk about things that don't matter too much to real life. I apologize. I get a little too much feeling sometimes. I will back off until I understand the rules of this place more. Thank you.
Well, this is the politics thread. FWIW we had prayers this morning for the people of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Both the French and English networks of CBC had good coverage.
@Burgess I think it rather depends what you want to discuss. Political issues belong here, if it's support you're after, All Saints is likely to be a better fit.
Just under 5 million Canadian tax filers (17.1% of all tax filers) declared making charitable donations in 2022, 0.3% fewer than a year earlier, despite the number of tax filers increasing 3.0% year over year.
This surprised me considerably - I imagined the number would be far higher than 17.1%, perhaps because I hang around churches and other organizations that depend on the generosity of the people. How do others see this? Is anyone else surprised?
Curious. I know someone whose job it is to keep track of this sort of thing and I remember he said that Covid was not good for the charitable sector. It would be interesting to have a breakdown by age, income, geography/cost-of-living, and things like that.
@Burgess you could post the same thing you posted here, in this thread in All Saints -- that is our thread for non-political Canadian discussions. Usually pretty light but when there are natural disasters and other major events it's a good place for people to share the challenges as well.
I know most of us are very aware of the fires and remembering the people affected in our prayers, but it definitely make it more real to hear from those who are closer to it and directly impacted. It does make everything else that we argue and debate about seem minor by comparison when you're in the middle of something like this.
I know most of us are very aware of the fires and remembering the people affected in our prayers, but it definitely make it more real to hear from those who are closer to it and directly impacted. It does make everything else that we argue and debate about seem minor by comparison when you're in the middle of something like this.
Yes, thanks for bringing these details to our attention, @Burgess.
Apparently, the CN Tower in Toronto has been lit up in the Oilers' colours. Not sure if they did that last year, or if it's some manifestation of the recent Elbows Up mood.
FWIW, I can remember the mid-1970s, prior to the NHL expansion, Edmontonians cheered for Montreal in successive Stanley Cups.
Probably, since there was an official ruling that harassment had taken place, and the complainant clearly wants the matter to go forward. These two factors distinguish the case somewhat from Justin Trudeau's alleged misbehaviour at the ski-resort party, for example.
Naheed Nenshi is heading to the legislature after the Edmonton Strathcona byelection. No major surprise, as it would be hard to imagine a more left-friendly constituency in Alberta than that one.
And the separatist Alberta Republicans came in third behind the UCP and the NDP in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Not a good omen for them, in the constituency that gave Alberta separatistism the only victory it has ever gotten, back in '82.
Comments
Unless things have changed, Finance has been working on a budget since the fall. It is only the desire to hide what the government is planning that they are not presenting a budget.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-age-appropriate-books-schools-1.7543899
As an aside, when I joined the UK forces 25-odd years ago there were loads of Canadians with British passports joining too. The lad in the bunk below me at Dartmouth, who was an ex-reservist in Princess Pat’s, actually bluntly said if he was going to join the forces then he wanted to join the British because the kit was better and there’d be more travel.
I expected the (white) South Africans and Zimbabweans, and the lads from the various Caribbean Commonwealth realms, but the Australian, NZ and Canadian contingent joining the UK forces was an eye-opener for a younger me.
This sums up my feelings on the whole matter pretty well.
Yeah. On the other hand, it was the premier of Ontario(motto: Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet) who suggested a few weeks back that Canada should start electing its judges.
True. It almost certainly won't become an actual policy.
FWIW, though, Ford's public statements on gender and education have been about as reactionary as Smith's, though I don't know if he's actually been able to implement any of his ideas.
I know, I know. I just thought it was ironic that the guy who mere weeks earlier had been getting himself hailed as Captain Canada was advocating a judicial policy historically reviled among Canadians as a major culprit in the devolution of American democracy into a populist debauch.
Well, I think think the message is arguably not so much "Canada is a loyal daughter of the Empire, ya yankee dogs!", and more like "If you insist on running your nation's trade and foreign policy like a coked-out reality show, we are more than capable of finding other alliances", with King Charles III a convenient and accessible symbol of our alternate options.
But yeah. If you're someone who thinks Canada's British inheritance is the sine qua non of its non-Americanness, this really is your moment of triumphant restoration.
He calmly stated that he thought independence requires an existing "nation", and he wasn't sure if "oil and gas" really qualify, but it's also ultimately up to the people of Alberta, though he really hopes Quebec will be the first.
(I was going to mischeviously observe that the Quebec independence movement had its greatest heyday around the same time that rabid francophobia was running amok in Alberta, though, being a kid in that era, I can't quite recall how much it ebbed and flowed relative to Quebec-related political events, eg. the 2/80 federal election and the 5/80 Quebec referendum. It was definitely in full swing by the end of 1980, at the very latest.)
Guilty as charged, sir.
Crossing blades with the ususal Republicans at the Ontario NDP Convention this year is going to be more fun than ususal.
Re: The BQ and Alberta
The BQ must really be enjoying themselves, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Although I detect a whiff of the old Social Credit Party there.
Though speaking of Quebec referendums, I am reminded when Pauline Marois visited Scotland ahead of the Scottish Referendum and was treated by the SNP as a bad smell.
The paving fluid and plumage await, Major Molyneaux.
[capitalization corrected for clarity]
Yeah. If this was some broader western-alliance snafu, eg. the Iraq War, left-wing republicans could point out that that monarchist Britain went to war and republican France stayed peaceful. But the current crisis is down ENTIRELY to the actions of the government of the most famously republican nation in the world, which Canadians still have a vaguely maintained memory of the country they desperately DON'T want to be part of.
Do you mean you detect Social Credit overtones in the Alberta independence movement, the Quebec independence movement, or both? Because all three could make sense, given the relevant history of the parties involved.
I'm generally tempted to lump Social Credit and creditiste in all their respective partusan manifestations, both douglasite and non-douglasite, together as one single farmer-car dealer alliance. That has also ALWAYS been the basis of Alberta separatism, and at least for a while seemed to be on the ascension in the PQ, with the leftist-cosmopolitans of the old Levesque coalition moving over to Quebec Solidaire.
(Open to correction on this, because I've heard conflicting things about the current PQ right now.)
In fairness, Quebeckers as a conquered people should probably have roughly the same right to self-determination as the Scots, if not moreso, given that New France was taken violently in one fell swoop. But I'm guessing that someone on the SNP's research team looked into the PQ and saw that they were by that point basically representing the viewpoint of Quebec's equivalent to Basil Fawlty.
And it's technically not Canadian territory, but such is our gallant history of proper deference to proper authority it's hard to find an example of our colonialists behaving with such bestial impudence.
(I think the historical ur-figure for Quebec's chauvinistic nationalism is more Duplessis than Caouette, with the QS, among others, I'm sure, comparing Legault's CAQ to the Union Nationale.)
Oh, and by the way, @Sober Preacher's Kid...
May I ask, what side would you have been on in the flag debate of the mid-1960s? I myself woulda been pro-maple leaf, and I will observe that maintaining an imperial-based banner hasn't deterred Australia from spawning a much stronger republican movement than we've ever seen in Canada(*).
(*) Even Quebec sovereigntists don't seem to have jettisoning the monarchy as a primary goal, more just something that will inevitably happen as a result of attaining their independence.
We have actually ended up at where I wanted us to be with national symbols. This is tied into the Armed Forces Unification controvery of a few years later. We presently have my ideal and preferred solution, the Armed Forces got their old service names, uniforms and ranks back and Canada has its own flag.
I just looked it up, and out of fifteen Commonweath Realms, only four, ie. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and(of course) the UK, have any recognizable British symbolism(*).
(*) Five, if you count St. Andrew's Cross on the Jamaican standard, though that symbol isn't exclusively British, and the colouring is different.
Though there are also anomalies outside the Commonwealth realms like Fiji.
Ahh, yes. And, of course, Hawaii...
We got States of Emergency for the forest fires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We live on the border which mostly we are not sure exactly where it is. 8 fires to the north if we are counting right. 1 is to south. Only 2 of the fires are under control. Heavy smoke and many evacuees coming to our Reserves and the villages. Some family camps are burnt out now. Elders and children are going far away from smoke which is hard. Lots of kindness. There is so much food, we will get fat lol. Same thing every summer now.
If you're looking to discuss the political fallout from this, your post might very well belong here, though focus on indigenous issues might make it suitable for Epiphanies.
If it's more just the event itself and its impact on everyday life, maybe the Canada thread in All Saints.
Just my two cents. We can also ask the mods for comment. @BroJames, @la vie en rouge, or @North East Quine might be around.
But don't worry, you haven't broken any rules.
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
From StatsCan via The Presbyterian Church in Canada (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240314/dq240314b-eng.htm):
Just under 5 million Canadian tax filers (17.1% of all tax filers) declared making charitable donations in 2022, 0.3% fewer than a year earlier, despite the number of tax filers increasing 3.0% year over year.
This surprised me considerably - I imagined the number would be far higher than 17.1%, perhaps because I hang around churches and other organizations that depend on the generosity of the people. How do others see this? Is anyone else surprised?
I know most of us are very aware of the fires and remembering the people affected in our prayers, but it definitely make it more real to hear from those who are closer to it and directly impacted. It does make everything else that we argue and debate about seem minor by comparison when you're in the middle of something like this.
Yes, thanks for bringing these details to our attention, @Burgess.
FWIW, I can remember the mid-1970s, prior to the NHL expansion, Edmontonians cheered for Montreal in successive Stanley Cups.
Probably, since there was an official ruling that harassment had taken place, and the complainant clearly wants the matter to go forward. These two factors distinguish the case somewhat from Justin Trudeau's alleged misbehaviour at the ski-resort party, for example.
And the separatist Alberta Republicans came in third behind the UCP and the NDP in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Not a good omen for them, in the constituency that gave Alberta separatistism the only victory it has ever gotten, back in '82.